“Sara? Isn’t that a lovely name?”

I smiled and covered my hand over my mouth, looking awkwardly down at my feet. I wasn’t used to compliments and I didn’t know how to act when receiving them.

“Are your parents at home, Sara?”

“Yes… Lucinda.”

“And they don’t mind you being out of the house for dinner?”

“No, ma… Lucinda.”

She frowned at this and then released Jaxon from her grip. My stomach rumbled again and all I could think about was food. Lucinda ordered Jaxon to sit down beside me while she served the food up. I could barely register his presence or think straight – my mind was on the delicious smell that sent hunger pains to my stomach. I hadn’t eaten that day, and this was going to be far more delicious than two minute noodles.

Lucinda had her eye on me throughout. She set the food down and watched me devour every morsel on my plate. Then she offered me more, which I gladly obliged. I don’t even remember the look on their faces as they watched me – I was too enamoured in my kingly meal to care.

She didn’t ask me any questions, and the momentary awkward discomfort I felt at being around an adult washed away quickly by her warm eyes. She smiled widely at me, revealing her crooked front tooth, and filled up my glass of water every time I gulped it down.

“You can come by anytime, Sara,” she said to me before I left that day. “Actually, why don’t you come by again tomorrow? I’ll be making lasagne. Have you ever had lasagne?”

“No,” I said with a shake of my head.

There was a sad smile on her face. “Well, I’m sure you’ll love it.”

And I did. I came by that evening for dinner, and was invited again. And again. By the end of the week of eating fine meals at Lucinda’s house, my stomach had swollen with content. It also helped she gave me bags of chips and chocolate bars to last me throughout the upcoming weeks. I had to hide them under my mattress when I got home in fear of my parents snatching them away from me.

My parents were non-existent in my life; never noticed when I was there or not, and only left the house once a week to hit the bottle shop for alcohol, and then the goodwill shops for canned food and noodles. It was good to be away from the latter gunk, and the stash they’d left for me to eat on my own was piling by the week.

They were negligent of me; even I knew that at eight years old, but I’d always been too independent to care.

At school, people in uniform would come by and warn us of careless parents/guardians. We were told to step forward if we had any personal problems at home, but… I never did. I was scared of what that meant. Would I be taken away? If I was taken away, would I be happy where I went? And if I went somewhere else, would I ever see Jaxon and Lucinda again? And, most horribly, if they did nothing, what would my parents do to me when they found out I said something?

There were risks either way. Staying meant being subjected every now and then to alcoholic rants where I’d hear the same slurred speech if I was present in the room: “Look at her there, that thing. She ruined our lives, eh Joanne? Stripped my place as a Jackal. Look at that thing there, staring at us like we’re fucking dogs. What you looking at, you little thing?”

“Oh, leave her alone, Norman,” Mom would slur back. “She’s just a little thing…”

“She ruined us, that little thing,” my father responded, staring cruelly at me. “She took away everything…”

I didn’t know what I took away, but I rushed to my room to hide from their cruel eyes before any more could be said.

I didn’t understand why my presence created such fury, and I was left unwanted and confused every time. Nights that my father brought me up usually resulted in very angry fights with Mom. She’d defend me (though do nothing to prevent the verbal abuse), he would get angry at her disagreeing to his opinion, and before I knew it, bottles were smashed, the sound of fists against flesh were heard, and whimpers and cries from my mother followed. I’d keep the light off in my room, cuddled into my mattress on the floor as I attempted vainly to seek warmth from my thin blanket while I closed my eyes tightly and covered my ears. Those were nights that had me shaking in fear, lost in the terror of not knowing if his attention would divert to me.

Sometimes I’d hear him stomp to his room and stop midway there to stand outside of mine. I could see the shadows of his feet from the small slit under the door. I could hear his breathing, slow and deep, unlike my battering heart that had me hearing my own pulse through my ears. When he left to his room, sometimes it would take me hours to relax, and other times I realized I’d peed my pants and was too scared to move.

Jaxon and Lucinda became my solace, and if Jaxon was busy playing with his own friends, I was in Lucinda’s welcoming home following her around like a bad smell. She worked as a mobile beautician. Sometimes she went to her customers, and sometimes they would come to her. She frequently let me sit next to her while she did a customer’s nails, eyelashes or make up. She even dyed hair.

I didn’t get bored of it either, and it was mostly because of the gossip between the regulars and Lucinda that had me most intrigued. I heard the most bizarre things – things I didn’t even understand at such a young age, but I loved knowing what was happening in Gosnells, mostly because I had never actually gone to places around town. She told me once, before a customer arrived, “Sara, what you hear and say stays among us girls. Understand?  Never mention this to another living soul, darlin’.” I nodded immediately to which she smiled at me and pinched my cheeks in adoration. Her caring touch always left a warm feeling in my chest.

“Apparently Doug was caught with Cynthia Jones,” said a regular by the name of Fiona one time. I’d never seen someone so orange in my life. “Betty slashed his tires before realizing she drove the car more than him.” She laughed hysterically at this while I wondered why the woman would slash tires.

“Betty’s a lost cause,” Lucinda muttered as she applied decorative to Fiona’s freshly done acrylics. “As if that woman hasn’t stuck her tongue in another man’s throat! The day she’s faithful will be the day I join a nunnery.”

Other things were said. Apparently a Mr Hatchet borrowed money from a Mr Gregory and never repaid him, so Mr Gregory, in a fit of rage, kicked down Mr Hatchet’s two thousand dollar custom made mailbox from Peru.

“As if I’d get a mailbox that cost that much!” Fiona roared in laughter.

Then a Gina Harding was pregnant again with baby number four to baby daddy number three but was still sleeping with baby daddy number two.

“What a cum bucket!” Fiona said. I idly wondered what that was.

Then a Jimmy Dunlop was sent back to prison for attempting to rob the convenience store on Albany road and accidentally locked himself inside.

“Double crossed the Black-backed Jackal bikie gang, that idiot. They caught it on the surveillance camera too. Dumbass crawled under the security window someone accidentally left unlocked and closed it up once he got in! He had to wait on the ground beside the register until morning. Hahahaha…”

They weren’t mindful of my presence and many graphic stories followed. I learned about the birds and the bees prematurely in Lucinda’s make shift beauty room. With an orange woman. I went to sleep that night with strange images in my mind, wondering how on earth that could fit in there…

Lucinda gave me reason, Jaxon gave me friendship, and my life became even more extraordinary when my father left the house in a fit of rage one night and didn’t come back. I was twelve, and his departure was the best thing that ever happened to me. Mom, on the other hand, begged to differ. She was in ruins; like a sunken vessel at the bottom of the ocean, she laid in her bed for days, soaking the pillows with drool and tears. Then she went back to alcohol and drank herself to sleep.

At twelve, things were a bit different between Jaxon and me. He had begun high school and I was still in the seventh grade. Though we hung out with his friends often, he was preoccupied with girls and other…not so good activities.

I’d like to think it was boredom that turned him to crime, but justifying his level of stupidity was stupid in itself. He liked the adrenaline and the risk and participated in many illegal doings around town; from stealing a purse on the bus one day, to breaking into a house on the same street as us another day, he was always gloating about having a pocket full of cash. He’d sworn me to secrecy, and I agreed to be loyal to my word, though I knew what he did was downright wrong and my chest felt tight when I thought about it.

“But it’s wrong,” I’d tell him repeatedly. It was the same old conversation. “If you get caught, you’ll be in serious trouble!”

“I’m not going to get caught,” he retorted. “I’ve never been caught yet! Besides, I don’t steal from anybody too bad like the bikies.”

“Well, when you do get caught, I’m going to laugh at you and tell you how much I told you so!”

“Good, I hope you do.” I hated that he was so nonchalant about it, like he didn’t care at all about getting caught.

“You’re so stupid!” and that was usually the last words I’d say before the matter was dropped.

He didn’t get caught, and after a few years of getting better and better at what he was doing, I stopped that conversation with him altogether. He had gotten so good at thieving, he even invested in high quality lock picks he bought from a shady man I suspected worked for the bikies and carried them wherever he went.

It was interesting watching him grow up. I’d always been a watcher of everything around me. Quiet and timid as I was, I still saw things others didn’t, and it became my personal enjoyment logging frivolous information away and later reflecting on them.

Jaxon was a confident kid with a good sense of humour. He was handsome, bigger than boys his age, and he drove the girls wild. He was like his mother when it came to relationships. In and out, the glow of the start of a relationship ended faster than a speeding bullet hitting its target.

Lucinda had many men in her life, and Jaxon hated every one of them. For a kid who I learned never knew his father, he carried that chip on his shoulder and aimed his anger at almost every older man he came across.

“I’m never going to work in some stupid job for ten hours a day and earn pennies when I can just find enough money for a week in one day somewhere on this street, Sara.” He motioned to the street we were on that was bustling with shoppers.

“You know you’re going to be old too one day,” I said to him once, catching his glare at a man in a suit that we walked past.

“So what?” he rebutted.

“So you can’t be staring daggers at every older guy. You’re going to be seeing them everywhere, and you’ll be working for one too.”

He laughed loudly at this. “I’m not working for anyone. I work for myself.”

“You mean you steal for yourself.”

I was never afraid of telling Jaxon my thoughts. He was the only person I was ever entirely open to, and it was pretty much because of the level of comfort we shared with each other. It helped I was his closest friend and he was mine too. I knew him well enough to know there was no talking sense into him, so I just shrugged and let it go.

Though we saw each other every single day, we probably hung out about three nights of the week. Other nights he was out and about and stressing Lucinda over the edge. I was with her almost every day after school. Sometimes I’d spend the night there on the couch to comfort her until Jaxon came through the door. I told her time and time again that the town was only small and there was nowhere he could really go that was dangerous. I knew I was telling her a lie, but it comforted her.

And troubled me.

Some nights I wondered if a police officer would show up at the door and let us know that Jaxon had been arrested for breaking and entering. For a reason I tried to suppress, that made me feel like my world would collapse.

I’ll never forget one night in particular. It was quarter to eleven and Lucinda had long passed out on the couch. My fourteen year old self waited outside in the dark streets for any sight of Jaxon.

The projects were dead quiet on this particular Wednesday night. I walked down the sidewalk until I made it to the small kid’s park at the end of the street. It was run-down; the slides had lost its shine, and the paint all around the monkey bars and jungle gym had long chipped and rusted from disregard.

I sat on one swing, threw my sandals off and dug my feet into the sand. I felt the humid air all around sucking me dry, but I didn’t care. I waited patiently for Jaxon to emerge from the shadows. His routine meant crossing the park on his way home.

I reflected pleasantly on how different he and I were. We didn’t like the same foods, didn’t have the same taste in music, and I hated all of his no-good friends and he hated the few I had. It was alright this way, though. It meant hanging out was something we did just the two of us, and I longed for any alone time with my good friend.

He’d tell me he was going to be out of Gosnells one day and would never look back. That he would be rich and own the fastest cars and have models for girlfriends. When I asked him once what he would do for a living, he just shrugged and said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to make money any way I can.”

His ambitions reflected a lot of his insecurities. He wanted women because he didn’t know what a relationship even meant. He wanted money because he was brought up having none. He wanted to get out of town because he felt too small in it. I never told him that I thought this of him in fear of wounding his ego, but I also didn’t think it was impossible.